CDC vaccine panel realizes again it has no idea what it’s doing, delays big vote

Today's meeting was chaotic and included garbage anti-vaccine presentations.

See full article...

 

[TwoKiloBalls]

This is another corroboration that Trump is a Soviet sleeper agent, placed in the US in the 1950s, charged with destroying the United States. He is remarkably effective at that goal.

He went to Moscow in the 80s and from all reports was different after that. I suspect they blackmailed him and he's now a Russian stooge. Makes sense since MAGA are a bunch of traitors.

 

[Viki Ai]

Do you suppose that Trump is offering some gigantic reward to the lackey who manages to do the absolute stupidest thing during the first year of this administration?

Yes, he'll throw them under the bus next year instead of this one.

 

[pnellesen]

At this point it's hard to even gin up outrage. It's not like we could have expected anything different from these incompetents. It's just depressing (but still important to report on).

It just sickens me that there are (many) Republican House/Senate members who definitely know better, but still are willing to sell their souls for a place in the court, regardless of how many children (and others) will die because they refused to say "No, that's just too much" to Dear Leader when he nominated RFK, Jr. for that position. Nearly every single Administration member is utterly unqualified for their positions, but RFK, Jr. stands out as the most egregious in my opinion - he is literally going to (and arguably has already) kill Americans with his policies.

 

[poltroon]

Why do these people want to give babies hepatitis? And can any of them even describe what hepatitis is or what the harmful impacts of having it are?

 

[Fatesrider]

Do you suppose that Trump is offering some gigantic reward to the lackey who manages to do the absolute stupidest thing during the first year of this administration?

My personal sense is that they've existed in their own echo chambers for so long they've forgotten what it's like to actually speak to other human beings on the subject face to face and have their delusional bullshittery questioned by people who know a fuckton more about vaccines than they do.

Not that it'll do any good to someone who's psychopathy is that deeply embedded. But it's always fun to watch the deer in the headlights expressions when their stupidity is so glaringly highlighted on a national stage in front of experts.

 

[Bill T.]

What did you expect, though? The moneyline on this going this way is like -1500.

I expected well-organized garbage anti-vaccine presentations.

Although, to be honest, it's not like they've shown a lot of competence in general. The fact they're a bunch of dunderheads is the biggest thing keeping them from making a total mess of everything.

Edit: I forgot to a word.

 

[Unclebugs]

How in the fuck do you mess up what is basically a pro forma meeting to rubber stamp RFK's agenda so badly that you can't apply the rubber stamp?

I dunno, but maybe it was intentional? If they can't get their shit together to come up with a policy then policy does not change. Inaction by incompetence as a strategy to thwart bad policy. Of course that assumes there are intelligent people doing this which is quite a stretch on my part.

 

[norton_I]

Just waiting for someone to stand up and shout that "vaccines got electrolytes."

Idiocracy used to be hilarious. Now it's haunting.

In Idiocracy, the reality TV star and MMA promoter president was faced with an existential challenge. He found the smartest person in the world, asked for his advice and followed it. Even when the advice sounded stupid (like from the toilet!?). In short, it's nothing like our current situation.

 

[ZenBeam]

Every time I read one Beth's articles on this committee, and their indecisiveness, it makes me think about "the dog that caught the car". Like the dog, they never gave one iota of thought to what they would do once they caught it (power).

Anti-vaccine activists are con artists, and they all fucking know it. They don't actually WANT to get power and, more importantly, the responsibility that comes with making the decisions. They just want lots of money and attention. Unfortunately for these hucksters (and the rest of the country) their constant campaigning to get the power and authority necessary to alter vaccine policy has actually worked! Now they are saddled with the culpability for making decisions that end children's lives through bad policy, and they are panicking.

They'd like to spend the next 4 years holding meetings where they trot out their BS, to raise their individual profiles (and as a result, their invited speaker fees), without actually doing anything. But they cannot actually do that. Both because policy does need to be set, and their supporters will see their lack of action, and turn on them. At the same time, it is (finally) dawning on them that this is real. If they change policy, and kids die, it will be their fault. With no wiggle room to blame anyone else.

These people are all going to end up murdering kids.

I'm your one downvote. I'm on your side, but I don't believe that these people are con artists. They're just stupid. Incredibly stupid. But I do believe that they believe what they are promoting. They're just, essentially, idiots.

 

[klarg]

The CDC which until this year was the preeminent organization for disease monitoring and control has been promptly reduced to a laughingstock and may never recover. This destruction is not accidental.

MAHA-ha-ha-oh. Ow.

 

[klarg]

Do you suppose that Trump is offering some gigantic reward to the lackey who manages to do the absolute stupidest thing during the first year of this administration?

An unconditional blanket pardon and 1000 trumpcoins.

 

[pjcamp]

When has that ever stopped these guys before? NOW they're afraid they're going to kill someone? Or perhaps now they've seen real data and can't make head nor tails out of it.

 

[subsDude]

In case you didn’t get enough reading Dr. Mole’s article, you can watch the entire nine hour long (!) shitshow for yourself. Helpfully, there’s no transcript (probably a DOGE cut) so you are hereby required to watch the entire thing

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) - December 4, 2025 - Day 1 of 2

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpthhPBFAgI

 

[giantrobothead]

I know I’ve made this comment before, and probably will again, but I can’t adequately express how furious this situation makes me. Possibly the greatest, most effective medical advance in history is in danger of being dismantled by fools and people are going to suffer and die as a result. The icing on the cake is that this could be seen coming from a mile away, yet our esteemed Senators confirmed RFK Jr.’s nomination anyway.

 

[Fifteen12]

Leaving the anti-vax nonsense aside, I've been in positions working with teams of people whose responsibility, prior to a meeting like this, is to make sure that everyone gets the same copy of any proposals ahead of time, that presentations are vetted ahead of time, etc.

It's not just the people in front of the microphones who are failing here, this is what a breakdown in the civil service looks like, in the beginning.

That’s the problem I guess when you fire everyone for no reason and then expect every other over worked public servant to pick up the slack. You get what you pay for, and thanks to DOGE, we’re no longer paying for professionals.

 

[silverboy]

In case you didn’t get enough reading Dr. Mole’s article, you can watch the entire nine hour long (!) shitshow for yourself. Helpfully, there’s no transcript (probably a DOGE cut) so you are hereby required to watch the entire thing

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) - December 4, 2025 - Day 1 of 2

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpthhPBFAgI

Remember, everybody, YouTube offers a playback speed option, up to 4X I believe. You can find it from the little gear icon, near the BR corner.

 

[spVolt]

In case you didn’t get enough reading Dr. Mole’s article, you can watch the entire nine hour long (!) shitshow for yourself. Helpfully, there’s no transcript (probably a DOGE cut) so you are hereby required to watch the entire thing

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) - December 4, 2025 - Day 1 of 2

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpthhPBFAgI

For the meetings in 2020 and 2021 where the COVID19 vaccines were discussed, and then whether or not to recommend boosters, I watched large portions of the meetings, read the transcripts, and read all the linked documents and reports. With eagerness.

For this crowd I won't accept the brain damage, and I'm sorry that qualified people such as Dr. Mole need to do so to keep us informed. There is no apology strong enough to make up for that.

 

[poltroon]

I know I’ve made this comment before, and probably will again, but I can’t adequately express how furious this situation makes me. Possibly the greatest, most effective medical advance in history is in danger of being dismantled by fools and people are going to suffer and die as a result. The icing on the cake is that this could be seen coming from a mile away, yet our esteemed Senators confirmed RFK Jr.’s nomination anyway.

Right? and just so... inexplicably. Trump breaks promises to people all the time, why did he keep this one, and use political capital to insist that the Senate go along?

For all the evil I saw coming in a Trump Administration part 2, I never imagined "rescind funding for cancer research and throw the data in the trash" or "actively prevent children from getting vaccines."

 

[MilleniX]

rescind funding for cancer research and throw the data in the trash

That might have been an anti-Biden special. Biden presided over a big bolus of additional funding for cancer research, his 'Moon shot', driven by the early death of one of his son Beau to brain cancer.

 

[Hydrargyrum]

I am not exaggerating about presentations being vetted, by the way, from citations to having the proper agency logo on powerpoint slides. I cannot stress enough that government meetings and committees are as much like the theatre productions I've worked on as anything in government.

So yes, if a committee descends into a complete circus for reasons other than external people and events, that falls entirely on the competence of the people who planned it every bit as much as a theatre production where Romeo walks on-stage wearing Juliet's dress and tells Juliet to "get thee to a nunnery", from Hamlet.

With producers like these, it's amazing the meeting doesn't break out into a rendition of Springtime For Hitler (And Germany).

 

[bodrius]

It is sad state of affairs when the best news we can hope for is "They haven't fucked it up yet!".

In a better timeline "Incompetence forced incompetent expert panel to postpone dangerous incompetent decisions" would be only a headline in The Onion.

 

[just another rmohns]

I want a plug-in that automatically inserts "Baby killer" before the name of the Baby Killing Health Secretary whenever it appears on a web page. Since it's true.

Install this userscript:

https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/470985-replace-text-on-webpages/post-install

Replace the search and replace bit with something like this:

        // Syntax: 'Search word' : 'Replace word',
        'Health Secretary' : 'Baby Killing Health Secretary',
        'RFK Jr.' : 'Brain Worm MAHA Guy',
        'RFK, Jr.' : 'Brain Worm MAHA Guy',

Tested on this article and the comments. Works great.

(I use Tampermonkey for Safari, but any userscript manager should do the job.)

 

[Eurynom0s]

He went to Moscow in the 80s and from all reports was different after that. I suspect they blackmailed him and he's now a Russian stooge. Makes sense since MAGA are a bunch of traitors.

He came back from Moscow and ran a full-page ad in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post railing about the US being losers and suckers for footing so much money for NATO.

 

[Madestjohn]

Woe to all when a Ship of Fools returns to port

 

[Dulux-Oz]

I made this post on another Ars article just the other day, and I feel compelled to repeat it again (but this time I fixed the spelling and grammar mistakes - I hope):

++++++++++++

Look, I know this is only slightly directly on-topic to this particular article (but really on-topic when considering the set of articles that this one is a sample of), but every-time I read one of these I can't help but think the following and be tempted to write what I've been finally forced/enticed/driven to write:

I'm a big fan of Warhammer and 40K (you can already see where this is going) and have been for decades (ie since when they were first released). As such I've read practically all the various novels from the combined universes over the years.

Yes, I know it's only fiction, but in all the stories dealing with Grandfather Nurgle (the Chaos God of Diseases, Master of Plagues, etc, etc, etc) the theme seems to be to get someone like a medic or a healer to turn to the Chaos God (or to get such a Cultist to become a medic or healer) or someone similar, and then get them into a position of power to weaken the Empire/Imperium/etc from the inside, by promoting "bad" science and remedies, discrediting "good" science and remedies, and generally cause the target society to collapse from within while rampant disease and plague run riot. Sometimes those individuals don't know what they're doing and are simply chasing profits, and sometimes they know exactly what they're doing and are active participants.

So, is it just me, or does that all sound distressingly similar to what is currently happening to our distant cousins in the US of A?

The above question is serious; here's the joke part of the post:

And if it's not just me, then shouldn't we be considering Exterminatus on that part of the planet so as to protect the rest of world - and apologies to Canada and Mexico for the collateral damage.

Mind you, this is all coming from a person who lives in a place that makes Catachan seem like a resort world.

++++++++++++

Edit: Nope, still missed one two

 

[JoHBE]

The plan might be to slowly normalize the batshit craziness. Over time, and when repeated often enpugh, the antivax presentations will start to make sense.

 

[hansmuff]

It's Steve Bannon's "hose them with shit all the time" strategy. In the pursuit of your power, just spray so much dung all over the country, the citizens on average can't keep up, or won't try to. And then you get away with all the shit they aren't seeing.

Also the problem isn't trump, much as I hate him, it's the heritage foundation and other "think tanks" (god do I hate that designation). Trump gone tomorrow will mean nothing.

We're good 'n fucked. I predict the mid-terms will not be taking place and I hope I am wrong.

 

[gnasher729]

So, basically the only thing saving us from their malice is their incompetence?

Sigh.

In my most optimistic view, there are committee members who were misled by malicious actors, and who are slowly figuring this out. Or who just figured out that there are contradictory anti-vax statements, all made by people who don’t have any actual knowledge.

 

[GrytPipe]

And here i am thinking that:
a) Trump will get his wall in the end, but it being built around the US, to keep the idiots from infecting the rest of the world,
b) the us is moving to a period where calling somebody a republican, is akin to a deathsentence and
c) the kennedy curse now extends even to the yet unborn members of the family...

How the american people can stand this is beyond my belief... But then again, common people nowadays don't seem to see much further than their screesn, since (in theses parts of the world) there's no government for 544 days in the heart of europe, and a (sort of) shutdown is looming.
It's only when the money will stop flowing, or deaths will occur, that people will understand exactly what trouble they're in..

 

[migrena]

dear citizens of united states. this clownshow stopped being funny long time ago. please stop.
br

 

[Wernher von Grün]

Another indication that the US of A is in full self-destruct mode.
So sad.

 

[aphexbr]

Do you suppose that Trump is offering some gigantic reward to the lackey who manages to do the absolute stupidest thing during the first year of this administration?

Lol, if only. That would suggest there's some actual planning and the people involved aren't really this stupid.

In reality, the lesson Trump learned from his first term is just that he really didn't like sane, competent people in positions where they could tell him he's wrong, so he replaced them this time with idiots, sycophants and grifters, with a strong tendency to prefer people he saw on TV. Once that happened, the rest of the incompetence and stupidity just comes naturally.

 

[aphexbr]

This is another corroboration that Trump is a Soviet sleeper agent, placed in the US in the 1950s, charged with destroying the United States. He is remarkably effective at that goal.

Alternatively...

 

[p______x]

Remember, everybody, YouTube offers a playback speed option, up to 4X I believe. You can find it from the little gear icon, near the BR corner.

Sadly, 2x is max and that still keeps this shitshow 4 hours of punishment. it's telling when Malone sounds like a more sane person in the room... After 30 min on double speed, I desperately tried to find a transcript to no avail.

edit: never mind. Transcript is up now and oooooh... WTF:

I immediately got "convulsions and arthritic conditions" just listening to this asshole's BS assembled by GROK.

 

[PermanentDonut]

Kennedy has also barred medical and health expert liaisons—such as the American Medical Association, the Infectious Disease Society of America, and the American Academy of Pediatrics—from participating in the ACIP working groups, which compile data and set language for proposed vaccine recommendations.

Beth, you seem to have made several typos in sequence. Right? Please tell me these are typos!

 

[charltjr]

Sadly, 2x is max and that still keeps this shitshow 4 hours of punishment. it's telling when Malone sounds like a more sane person in the room... After 30 min on double speed, I desperately tried to find a transcript to no avail.

edit: never mind. Transcript is up now and oooooh... WTF:

I immediately got "convulsions and arthritic conditions" just listening to this asshole's BS assembled by GROK.

View attachment 123631

This is such a timely post. I was just about to say that I suspect a lot of the MAGA positioning is that Hep-B is often sexually transmitted or through sharing needles. Something which you can punch down at is catnip to them.

So, you know, let the children suffer the horrific consequences of their parent's actions and never mind that the parent may not even know that they are infected.

Seems morally appropriate for god fearing christians. /s

 

[p______x]

This is such a timely post. I was just about to say that I suspect a lot of the MAGA positioning is that Hep-B is often sexually transmitted or through sharing needles. Something which you can punch down at is catnip to them.

So, you know, let the children suffer the horrific consequences of their parent's actions and never mind that the parent may not even know that they are infected.

Seems morally appropriate for god fearing christians. /s

That specific language used is like taking off the white hood. It's been deemed inappropriate and stigmatizing in the past 20-30 years at least. Beyond the BS moralization coming from people who consistently lack the moral authority, denigrating and alienating target populations obviously decreases public health participation and thus causes harm.

So by that two sentences, I know that Michael Belkin either reads literature that is decades old, or gets his information from sources that intentionally embrace such terminology and thus nefarious in motivations.

 

[Antron Argaiv]

Pre-coffee thought (so take it with a few grains of whatever):

In only 5 years, CDC has gone from the folks that managed the incredible push to beat COVID, to the laughing stock of the world.

Damn it. Why can't my country be like it used to be? Flaws and all, it was better than this.

 

[entropy_wins]

TIL Golgafrinchan ship B* has a vaccine committee on board....


*Douglas Adam's insight total genius

 

[Andydoesfargo]

So, basically the only thing saving us from their malice is their incompetence?

Sigh.

That was the story of the 4 years 2016-2020. RFK Jr’s MAHA is repeating MAGA 1.0 beat for beat, while MAGA 2.0 has moved to active malice.

Sigh.